Rehab home operator sues Newport Beach

Newport’s largest drug and alcohol rehabilitation home operator is suing the City of Newport Beach and the City Council, alleging the city discriminates against recovering drug addicts and alcoholics.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in United States District Court, seeks to overturn a new city ordinance aimed at curbing the proliferation of drug and alcohol rehabilitation homes in Newport Beach.

“With this ordinance, the city can limit access of treatment within Newport Beach without a true definition to the appropriate level of providers to meet the needs of the community,” John Peloquin, vice president of operations for CRC Health Group, which owns Sober Living by the Sea, said in an e-mail to the Daily Pilot. “The City of Newport Beach now gets to decide who can get treatment and who cannot and at what levels. This could lead to profiling.”

The ordinance, which went into effect last week, requires most homes get use permits to remain open and will subject the homes to a public hearing process to gain approval. Sober Living by the Sea alleges in the suit the city’s new rules violate federal fair housing laws. Recovering drug addicts and alcoholics are classified as disabled under the federal Fair Housing Act.

Efforts to reach Jim Markman, the city’s special legal counsel on the rehabilitation home issue, for comment Monday morning were unsuccessful, but other city officials have said publicly they fully expected legal challenges in response to the city’s new ordinance, which has been touted as the most comprehensive of its kind.

“They [rehabilitation home operators] are going to say that the ordinance changes their status to make it more difficult for them to operate,” Markman told the Daily Pilot in January. “My answer is, if we can’t claim that, then there’s going to be nothing a city can do.”

Sober Living by the Sea operates about 40 rehabilitation homes in Newport Beach that house recovering addicts, most of them on Balboa Peninsula. Clients typically live in the homes for a period of time after attending a 30-day treatment program. Peninsula residents claim Sober Living by the Sea and other programs like it bring crime into their neighborhoods.

Sober Living by the Sea has been headquartered in Newport Beach for the past 21 years. The program was featured in the A&E reality television show “Intervention,” which profiles people battling addiction and sends them to rehabilitation centers around the country.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at brianna.bailey@latimes.com.